Workplace Strategy Articles

An important source of information when conducting a workplace analysis and developing a workplace strategy is to understand which activities employees are engaged in and to what extent.

A workplace analysis aims to identify the needs of the work environment. The workplace analysis can then be used to develop a workplace strategy that includes a proposal for working methods such as hybrid, activity-based, or fixed-seat offices, as well as suggestions for space and how the office can be designed. The workplace analysis is […]

A global workplace survey answers questions at a global level. The decision in front of you is local: how much space, what kinds of space, and what the work carried out in it requires. This article explains how to read Gensler Research Institute’s Global Workplace Survey 2024 as one input to that decision. It matters […]

Software agents can now open applications, read a screen, click, type, and complete multi-step digital tasks from a plain-language instruction. A new survey in the *Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research* pulls this fast-moving field into one map — and the practical question for workplace teams is not whether the technology is impressive. It is whether […]

The question in the headline sounds philosophical. The decision behind it is not. If AI genuinely shifts how people spend their working hours, then the assumptions behind your current workplace strategy may already be out of date. This article explains what new Gensler evidence actually shows about AI and human work, and what it means […]

Most organisations are still asking the wrong question about AI. They ask where to plug it in. The stronger question is what work should look like once the technology is present at all. This article explains what Ethan Mollick’s argument about AI as a general-purpose force means for workplace strategy, and what your team should […]

Most responsible AI programmes are built around the model. They test for bias, accuracy, and safety, then treat the human consequences as a communications problem to manage later. A recent MIT Sloan Management Review analysis argues that this is backwards: if responsible AI ignores workforce impact, it is not responsible at all. This article explains […]

Office decisions require more than rent and floor area. Learn how workplace strategists use analysis, Workplace Adequacy™ and scenarios to create better decisions.

A decade of activity-based working evidence suggests imported desk-sharing ratios are the least safe number in workplace strategy. Here is what to measure instead.

# How Does Colour Temperature Affect Creativity in the Workplace? Lighting for creative work should not be chosen by atmosphere alone. This article explains how colour temperature affects creativity and what stronger workplace teams should do differently when they brief, test, and evaluate lighting decisions. The question is no longer whether lighting matters. It is […]

Recovery spaces work better when sight, sound and scent are designed together. This article explains what workplace teams can learn from multisensory stress-recovery research, and how those insights should shape the brief for support spaces. Many organisations still treat break spaces as if visual atmosphere were enough. A softer colour palette, a few plants, and […]

Organisations often try to create new ways of working through vision, policy, and communication. All of those may matter, but they are rarely enough on their own. If the work environment makes the right behaviour difficult, people will eventually return to whatever feels easiest. This article explains how workplace strategy can encourage desired behaviours by […]